1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to an evacuation system for high-rise buildings.
More particularly, the invention relates to an evacuation system suitable for installation both on the outside of a high-rise building, and internal in the building, which does not rely on electric power for operation, and which is capable of safe, swift evacuation of all persons from upper floors in the building.
2. Description of Prior Art
The art is replete with evacuation systems for multi-story and high-rise buildings. These prior systems take many forms, and range from simple fabric chutes to complicated and expensive, electronically controlled systems.
Fire escapes made from fabric or mesh chutes are disclosed in, for example, Putman U.S. Pat. No. 342,810, Bartley U.S. Pat. No. 1,265,165, Barker U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,621 and Orii et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,717. Such arrangements suffer from several drawbacks and disadvantages in relation to use in a high-rise building. They have limited usefulness in a high-rise building because of the height of the building, and therefore the drop through which a person muse descend. They are not suitable for use on the inside a building because, among other things, the fabric escape chute would be relatively easily damaged, and special provisions such as in Putman would be required to protect the user from the dangers of a fire proximate the chute. They also can not be easily used by an injured or unconscious person, or a handicapped person such as in a wheel chair.
Other escape devices are provided with slides or angled chutes along which a person slides to escape the building. For example, Richardson U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,772 discloses a fire escape in which a person slides down an inclined chute on his or her back, and requires the person to manually show his or her descent by gripping a handrail. Again, the height of many high-rise buildings preclude safe use of such arrangements, and they present the possibility of injury to the user as a result if the sliding action, and in the case of the Richardson arrangement, injury from manually gripping the hand rail. Such arrangements are also not easily used by an injured, unconscious or handicapped people.
Conveyer type escape systems are disclosed in Clokey U.S. Pat. No. 309,929, Hull U.S. Pat. No. 670,050 and Smith U.S. Pat. No. 1,029,769. These devices may sometimes be configured for use by most people, however, there are relatively complicated, and therefore expensive and would be prone to malfunction in the event of an emergency. They also typically rely on the availability of electrical power for proper operation, which power may or may not be available without provision of backup generating equipment.
Elevators are also indicated for use in evacuating a building, such as disclosed in Sassak U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,060 and Laurutis U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,975. However, these arrangements also typically require electric power for successful operation.
There is an ever-present need for an improved system for safe and swift evacuation of a high-rise building. In particular, there is a need for a high-rise building evacuation system that address the above-identified drawbacks and disadvantages of prior building evacuation systems.